Why Use Twitter?

The beauty of twitter is because of the 140 character limit, it somehow makes it easier for you to converse with important influencers because it takes less time than responding to an email.

Apart from being a powerful tool for networking, it is also a great way to drive traffic to your blog. For me, Twitter is the second highest source of traffic to my blog, second only to Google. And the best news – it takes minimal time and is completely free!

Once you have built up a base of followers (and it doesn’t have to be a large number), you will start seeing the rewards for your efforts.

Tip #1: Who to tweet

To get some engagement out of Twitter, you can’t just sit around and wait for people to talk to you. You have to engage with them first.

With Twitter, it is not expected that you be able to read every single post. It takes up way too much time for no return. Instead, create your own lists of people that you want to engage with. You can do this through twitter, by going to your profile and clicking on “Lists” in the sidebar.

Set up lists of your peers and also your influencers. This allows you to easily track some people that you would love to interact with. Don’t make a huge long list of each. Choose 5-10 key people that you would like to track.

Once you have these lists you can easily see what these people are tweeting. Now, interact with them. Reply to their tweets, or ask them a question. Start re-tweeting what they say, or promoting their blog posts on twitter.

Don’t be a stalker. No need to go overboard. But these small interactions over time start to add up, and you will start to grow a strong network of people who will take interest in what you do and promote what you do.

Tip #2: When to tweet

You don’t have to post only once a day on twitter. As I mentioned earlier, it is impossible to read every single tweet on your following list. The same is true for the people following you.

With this in mind, don’t be afraid to post multiple times a day. You don’t want to tweet the same message over and over again, and you don’t want to post 10 times within a matter of minutes. Spread your tweets out over the day so you have more potential to reach a wider range of people.

One great tool that allows you to see the best time to post to reach the majority of your followers is Tweriod. Tweriod analyses both your tweets and your followers’ tweets to find the best time to post for maximum exposure.

With Tweriod you can see what times to post the tweets you want people to respond to the most to increase your engagement on Twitter.

Tip #3: What to tweet

There are many ways to measure what posts perform the best on twitter. One of my favorite tools is Buffer. Buffer is a tool that allows you to queue up your twitter posts. The great thing about Buffer is that you can easily track how each of your tweets performs.

With buffer you can see what types of tweets perform the best, and at what times. With this information you can make informed decisions about what types of posts and when to post. Experiment and see if you can get some more engagement.

Increase Your Twitter Engagement Today

If you want more engagement, the basic things to do are to:

seek engagement

experiment with what to post at what time, and

measure to see if it is working or not.

You can build up your network and get more traffic back to your website.

Let me know in the comments below what kinds of things you do to increase your engagement on twitter! I look forward to hearing what you have to say. And, if you connect with me on twitter, let me know you found me at Become A Blogger!

I just noticed that you can sync your buffer app schedule from within Tweriod with the click of a button. That’s kind of cool. I just did that and it will use the best times to send out my tweets. Awesome stuff.

Great ideas! I’m only just beginning my Twitter adventure and I’ve most definitely received some valuable direction here. Like, “don’t be afraid to post multiple times a day” … I’ll take your advice. Thank you!

Thanks for the comment, Jeff. A great thing about posting multiple times a day is that you are able to reach a wider audience, and you are also more likely to stay in your audience’s mind if you are regular.

I do recommend Hootsuite and Buffer to put your twitter on autopilot. I usually schedule a whole heap of posts to go out each day. Then, I pop in to reply to people who have responded to me. It’s a system that works well for me, and I actually don’t spend all that much time relatively on social media – however, it is my 2nd source of traffic to my blog, after google.

As far as what I try to do to increase engagement – I’m making an effort to start more real conversations in addition to promoting content. I love when real discussions happen on Twitter. It’s a great way to start relationships.

I love Hootsuite for scheduling tweets — I try and set them up to go out once per hour on auto 24/7, and make it a point to be on “live” at some point throughout the day, at which point I retweet other people’s stuff or respond to things. Hootsuite allows me to set my feed up for the day when I actually have time to do it, rather than having to do it manually all day long. Twitter is currently my #2 social media traffic source to my web site.

Yeah, Hootsuite is also a great tool. I’ve been back and forth with that one. It’s especially great if you have multiple social media accounts and multiple people managing your social media campaigns. I’ve found buffer to be much easier for scheduling tweets personally, but I’m most likely going to be using a combination of Buffer, Hootsuite and Tweetdeck to fully manage everything.

I love Hootsuite. It’s great for not only automation, but also for monitoring. I monitor several lists that I have set up (twit tip #1) and also people that mention me or a hash tag I’m monitoring. Twitter is my #2 source as well for traffic.

Carlie,
This is a great article. I learned some new things! I signed up for tweriod, so we’ll see what it says. I like twitter, but I still have a lot to learn about it. Can’t wait to see another article from you.

Don’t be afraid of making a mistake. What’s the worst that could happen? Just test things out, some things work better than others. Experiment, and you will find what works for you. So it isn’t making mistakes, it is just experimenting